Gmail Tips And Tricks Pt. 1

Gmail is hands-down the best web-based email service on the net. Gmail has completely revolutionized the way I look at my inbox. I manage all of my email from my personal Gmail inbox, including the many TTB emails I receive almost daily. At this point, I cannot imagine a program I could use to manage my email any more efficiently.

Perhaps you are the Gmail master and maybe you can share a little more than what I can, but I have put together some tips and tricks to help you love Gmail even better…and get the ladies—–>

I am going to start off with two Firefox plug-ins that I find a great help:

• 1. GmailThis is an excellent browser bookmarker that lets you quickly forward highlighted text on any webpage via Gmail. Very simple!
• 2. Gmail Search - search your Gmail account directly from the Firefox search bar. This can be of great help for people who search for messages, like myself.

Some of these, I am going to recommend GreaseMonkey that allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript:

• Google Reader Integration is a complete integration of GReader into Gmail.
• Label Colors changes color menu labels to make them stand out better. Absolutely love it!
• I cannot tell you how many times I have actually “attached” something, but didn’t actually attach it. Attachment reminder helps reminds you to attach a file to your Gmail, based on whether you have the word attach (’ed’, ‘ment’, PFA, etc) in the body.
• GmailTo is a code that forces all “mailto” links to open in GMail. This is great if Gmail is the only solution you are using. It is not recommended if you use an email client on your machine to send mails.

I am also going to let you in on some things you might now know. It took me a while to find out about these features, but I have a small excuse. I was using a client for a good while, until I got tired of using an email client that did not give me what I needed. Take a look at these:

• If you are sending a Word document or Excel file as an attachment, Gmail lets you easily open it in Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
• If you use iGoogle, try Gmail gadget. I use iGoogle to bring together a lot of the information I care about on the web. I’ve added the Gmail gadget to my page to get a preview of my Inbox, which never seems to be empty.
• Most people know that you can chat with your contacts in Gmail if they’re using Gmail too. But there are some features that make chat particularly useful in the context of using your email, like replying by chat. You know that dot beside the sender’s name? If they are online and they have sent you an email, you can reply by chatting with the person. The neat thing is that Gamil actually archives the conversation as an email so you can look it up later.

There are so many more tips and tricks and I hope I have given you some that you didn’t already know about. In other words, I hope this was helpful to you. Feel free to educate us on others that were not mentioned above. We are always willing to learn more here at TTB!